Method of assembling and testing spray controls



United States Patent [72] lnventors l'lelmut Sprang er Oederan; Erhard Schreiber, Freital; Alexander Frenzel, Breitenau uber Floha; Hans- Joachim Eisentraut, Dresden, Germany [21] Appl. No. 729,650 [22] Filed May 16, 1968 [45] Patented Nov. 17, 1970 [73] Assignee Polyplaste l-l. Rolf Spranger K.G.

Oederan Saxon, Germany [54] METHOD OF ASSEMBLING AND TESTING SPRAY (CONTROLS 8 Claims, 4 Drawing Figs.

[52] U.S. Cl 209/73, 198/220; 15/204; 324/65 [51] Int. Cl...., B07c 5/34 [50] Field of Search 198/220, B10, B40, A10; 15/304, 306.2; 209/73, 74, 75; 340/235; 324/65NEP [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,074,138 1/1963 Elliott 15/304X 3,305,067 2/1967 Mayer l98/22OB10 Primary Examiner-Allen N. Knowles Attorney- Nolte and Nolte ABSTRACT: A method of assembling and testing plastic parts specifically spray control. Each spray control is made up of a manually operable control member and a nozzle carried thereby and assembled therewith. The control members are first fed to a receiving station, and then they are successively transported to a cleaning station where they are cleaned, to a testing station, where the flow of fluid therethrough is tested, to an ejecting station, where unsatisfactory control members are rejected, and then to an assembly station where a nozzle is assembled with each control member. Then the assembled nozzle and control member are tested whereupon the unsatisfactory assemblies are rejected while the satisfactory assemblies are delivered to a desired location. The feeds of the control members and nozzles are regulated to achieve the maximum rate of supply thereof. In the event that a plurality of successive components in excess of a given number are rejected, the operations are terminated. The items are counted as well as tested, and the testing of the completed assemblies is carried out by electronically checking the spray which is produced.

Patented Nov. 17, 1970 3,540,585

Sheet 1 of 2 FIG.1

- INVENTORS 4O HELMUT SPRANGER ERHARD SCHREIBER ALEXANDER FRENZEL HANS-JOACHIM EISENTRAUT Sheet 3 of 2 FIG. 2

FIG. 3 FIG. 4

IN TORS HELMUT SPRA R et ul METHOD OF ASSEMBLING AND TESTING SPRAY CONTROLS BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The invention relates to a method for automatically feeding, assembling, testing, sorting and counting plastic parts specifically spray controls each of which consists of a manually operable control member and a nozzle which is assembled therewith.

With previously known methods of this type, the various operations as well as the transporting of the articles were carried out manually. Thus, for example, the assembly of the nozzles with the manually operable control members was carried out manually with the aid of suitable tools. The testing of the structure during an intermediate stage in the assembly thereof and the testing of the final assembly were carried out by random checking of selected items.

The disadvantages of these known methods reside above all in the requirement of manual operations and in the relatively large number of rejected pieces resulting therefrom. The random checking of the articles is intended to but does not provide a guarantee for the required quality of all of the spraycontrol assemblies.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is a primary object of the invention to provide a fully automatic feeding, assembling, checking, sorting, and counting of all spray-control assemblies,

In particular, it is an object of the invention to provide a method by which the latter results can be automatically achieved.

In accordance with the invention, the manually operable control members and the nozzles which are to be assembled therewith are respectively situated in suitable hoppers from which they are directed in an adjustable manner to vibratory feeders, respectively. These feeders then automatically feed the nozzles and manually operable control members along predetermined paths to various stations where these components are received and assembled as well as tested, sorted, and counted, the transportation of the articles from one station to another being brought about by way of a rotary carousel structure. The manually operable control members are checked prior to assembly of nozzles therewith, so that faulty control members will be rejected before a nozzle is assembled therewith. After assembly of a nozzle with a satisfactory control member, the assembly is again checked by directing a suitable liquid medium therethrough. In the event that the spray which is derived from the assembled structure does not come up to the required quality, a signal for rejection of the faulty assembly is provided, and then it is automatically rejected. Those assemblies which are satisfactory are collected in a suitable container.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS The invention is illustrated by way of example in the accom- DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring to FIG. 1, there is shown therein a hopper l in which a supply of manually operable control members 16 are located. The control members 16, one of which is illustrated in FIG. 3, are in the form of manually operable pushbutton or knob controls capable of being manually actuated to turn a spray on or off. From the hopper l the control members 16 flow downwardly through a feed pipe 20 and an adjusting pipe 26 into a vibratory feeding unit 5. The adjustable pipe 26 serves to provide for maximum charging of the vibratory feeder 5 in which the control members 16 are geometrically arranged to be fed thereby along a predetermined path determined by a slide rail 9 along which the control members 16 advance from the interior of the feeder 5. While traveling along the path determined by the slide rail 9, the several members 16 arrive one after the other to a rotarycarousel 11 where the various operations take place at various stations distributed around the carousel.

The first station is a receiving station where each member 16 is received on a support member 7 in the form of a suitable hollow pin,

As may be seen from FIG. 2, the carousel 11 which is used for mounting, testing, sorting, and counting has eight operating stations 3138. In order to prevent movement of the control members 16 at the stations 32, 33, 35 and 36, the control members16 at these stations are held down on their support members 7 by holddown devices 15 carried by a mounting plate 12 and capable of having their elevations adjusted.

After each control member 16 is received at the receiving station 31 where it is placed on a support member 7, each member 16 is rotated to a predetermined angular position on the support member 7. For this purpose at each stroke of the carousel when a new control member is received at the station 31 and the other members are advanced from one station to the next, the plate 12 reciprocates up and down and, by way of a drive 4 in the form of an electric motor carried thereby, a rotary pin 3 is turned, this pin 3 engaging each member 16 to displace it from the slide rail 9 onto a supporting member 7. As a result of the rotary movement provided for each member 16 by way of the rotary pin 3, each member 16 is turned on its support member 7, the configuration of which conforms to the interior configuration of the member 16, until the member 16 has the desired angular position, the member 7 carrying a suitable stop member which engages a part of control member 16 to terminate the rotary movement thereof when the desired angular position is reached. In the drive between the member 4 and the rotary member 3 there is a slip clutch which slips during rotation of the member 3 after the member 16 has engaged the angularly positioned stop member so that it has arrived at the required angular position.

The second operating station is the cleaning station 32 where each control member 16 arriving at this station is cleaned by having a jet of compressed air directed against its exterior surface.

The third operating station 33 is a testing station where each control member 16 is checked particularly with respect to the opening 22 thereof, which is a nozzle-receiving opening in which a nozzle is subsequently mounted, and with respect to the throughflow opening 23 through which the liquid is adapted to flow, these features being illustrated in FIG. 3. This testing is carried out by using water as the testing medium, for example. The water is directed through a hose 28 and from the latter through a connecting hollow pin 8 which is fluid-tightly connected on the one hand to the hose 28 and on the other hand to the support member 7, which has a hollow bore through which the water flows and ,which carries the control member 16. I

The stream of water which issues from the control member 16 at the testing station 33 influences an electrical value at electrodes toward which the water stream is directed, so as to achieve in this way a signal for controlling the subsequent operation. In the event that there issues from the nozzlereceiving opening 22 an amount of water which does not come up to the required amount, then at the fourth station 34, which is an ejecting station, the unsatisfactory control member 16 is rejected by directing air under pressure through the support member 7 to raise the member 16 therefrom and eject it.

A suitable electric pulse transmitting device is provided for disengaging a clutch 25, shown schematically at the lower right portion of FIG. 1, to prevent operations from being performed at the fifth station 35 where a nozzle is to be assembled with a control member 16. Thus, in the event that a control member 16 is ejected at the station 34, then when the empty support member reaches the station 35 there will be no unnecessary operations at this latter station to carry out assembly of a nozzle with a control member which is not at the station 35, this interruption in the operations at the station 35 being brought about automatically through the electrical impulse derived from the electrical structure at station 33 when the requirements of the test are not met.

Each support pin 7 and the connecting pin 8 situated therebeneath are axially movable in a vertical direction so that they can be moved downwardly while being urged upwardly by a coil spring. In accordance with the requirements at the individual operating stations, as determined by the length of the holddown device 15, a watertight and airtight connection between the pin 7 and the hollow tubular pin 8 therebeneath is achieved.

At the fifth operating station 35, which is the nozzle-mounting station, the individual nozzles are derived from a hopper 2 from which the nozzles flow downwardly through a pipe 21 and into and through an adjustable pipe 27 so as to reach a vibratory feeder 6. From the feeder 6 the successive nozzles are directed along the predetermined path determined by the slide rail 10 which directs the row of nozzles one after the other to a location in front of an assembling piston 24 which is actuated along a stroke which advances the lowermost nozzle 17 from the bottom of the guide rail 10 into the opening 22 of a control member 16 which is situated at the station 35.

The sixth operation station 36 is a testing station for testing the completed spray-control assembly. At this station the completed assembly 30 (FIG. 4) has a medium such as water directed therethrough also by way of a hose 28 and the connection provided in the above-described manner through the tubular connecting pin 8 and the hollow interior of the support member 7. The spray which issues from the completed assembly 30 is in the form of a conical spray which is received between suitable electrodes which are adjusted to provide a proper checking, and the conical spray will influence an electrical value in such a way that if the required spray is not provided a signal is given to a sorting device. In the event that a plurality of successive rejected components exceeds a given preselected number, the entire installation is automatically turned off so that the operations are automatically terminated in this case. Also, at the station 36 the number of satisfactory assemblies 30 are counted.

The seventh station 37 is a rejecting station where unsatisfactory assemblies are automatically rejected. The eighth station 38 is a delivery station from where the satisfactory assemblies 30 are delivered to a collecting container or the like. For this purpose a stream of air under pressure is directed through the pins 7 when they arrive at the stations 37 and 38 so as to provide for rejection of unsatisfactory assemblies at the station 37 and for delivery of satisfactory assemblies at the station 38.

The extent to which the hoppers 1 and 2 are supplied with control members 16 and nozzles 17, respectively, is measured by measuring devices 29 which are capable of determining the extent to which these hoppers are filled. When the amount of components in these hoppers falls below the given level, a signal is provided for automatically filling the hoppers. The measuring devices 29 may provide either an optical or an acoustical signal.

Slide valves 18 and 19 are capable of being manually adjusted for closing the pipes 20 and 21, respectively, when the vibratory feeders and 6 are exchanged.

The vibratory feeders 5 and 6 as well as the drive 39 and the driving motor 40 are carried by a suitable base plate 14. The driving motor 40 and transmission 39 are intermittently controlled so as to provide for the stepwise angular movement of the carousel to advance the components from one station to the next.

We claim:

I. In a method for automatic feeding, assembling. testing, sorting and counting of spray controls each of which consists of a hollow manually operable control member and a nozzle carried thereby, the steps of feeding a supply of said control members situated in a hopper from the hopper in an adjustable manner to a vibratory feeder, directing the control members from the vibratory feeder along a predetermined path to which the control members are fed by the vibratory feeder, transferring each control member from said path onto a support member, turning the thus transferred control member to a given angular position on the support member, advancing each control member while it is on a support member to a cleaning station, cleaning the exterior of each control member at the cleaning station by directing fluid onto the exterior of the control member, advancing the support members with the control members thereon to, in sequence. a testing station for testing a nozzle-receiving opening and through-flow opening of the control member, an ejection station for ejecting unsatisfactory control members which are to be rejected, and a nozzle assembling station for assembling a nozzle with each control member which is not rejected, transmitting to said ejection station a signal for ejecting at said ejecting station an unsatisfactory control member found at said testing station and preventing transmission of said signal when .a satisfactory control member is received at said testing station so that a satisfactory control member will move into and out of said ejecting station without being ejected, and also sending a signal to a nozzle-assembling structure at the nozzle-assembling station for preventing operation of the nozzle-assembling structure only when an unsatisfactory control member has been ejected at said ejection station while actuating said nozzle-assembling structure to assemble a nozzle with a control member which is not ejected at said ejection station and thus advances to said nozzle-assembling station.

2. In the method of claim I, the additional steps of directing nozzles from a hopper in an adjustable manner to a vibratory feeder and then directing the nozzles from the vibratory feeder along a predetermined path to said nozzle-assembling station, and, at said nozzle-assembling station. driving a nozzle with a mounting piston into a nozzle-receiving opening of a control member at said nozzle-assembling station.

3. In the method of claim 2 and wherein there is situated, subsequent to said nozzle-assembling station, a spray-control testing station where the assembled spray control is tested, the steps of feeding the assembly of spray-control member and nozzle from said nozzle-assembling station to said spray-control testing station, directing a liquid through each spray control received at the latter testing station to provide a conical spray from said nozzle, directing the conical spray between a pair of adjustable electrodes at said spray-control testing station to influence an electrical value, and using the latter value for giving a signal to a sorting device and for simultaneously counting the spray controls.

4. In the method of claim 3, the steps of automatically terminating the operations in the event that a successive plurality of rejected components exceeds a preselected number.

5. In a method for automatic feeding, assembling, testing. sorting and counting of spray controls each of which consists of a hollow manually operable control member and a nozzle carried thereby, the steps of feeding a supply of said control members situated in a hopper from the hopper in an adjustable manner to a vibratory feeder, directing the control mem bers from the vibratory feeder along a predetermined path to which the control members are fed by the vibratory feeder, feeding a supply of said nozzles situated in a second hopper from the second hopper in an adjustable manner to a second vibratory feeder, and directing the nozzles from the second feeder along a predetermined path to a location for assembly with a control member.

6. In a method for automatic feeding, assembling, testing, sorting and counting of spray controls each of which consists of a hollow manually operable control member and a nozzle carried thereby, the steps of feeding a supply of said control members situated in a hopper from the hopper in an adjustable manner to a vibratory feeder, directing the control members from the vibratory feeder along a predetermined path to which the control members are fed by the vibratory feeder, testing the control members and automatically terminating the operations if asuccessive number of rejected control members exceeds a given number.

7. In a method for automatic feeding, assembling, testing, sorting and counting of spray controls each of which consists of a hollow manually operable control member and a nozzle carried thereby, the steps of feeding a supply of said control members situated in a hopper from the hopper in an adjustable manner to a vibratory feeder, directing the control members from the vibratory feeder along a predetermined path to which the control members are fed by the vibratory feeder,

and adjusting the movement of the control members from the hopper tothe vibratory feeder in a manner which charges the latter to a maximum extent.

8. In a method for automatic feeding, assembling, testing, sorting and counting of spray controls each of which consists of a hollow manually operable control member and a nozzle carried thereby, the steps of feeding a supply of said control members situated in a hopper from the hopper in an adjustable manner to a vibratory feeder, directing the control members from the vibratory feeder along a predetermined path to which the control members are fed by the vibratory feeder, transferring each control member from said path onto a support member and turning the thus transferred control member about itself on the support member to a predetermined orientation on the support member. 

